Stop The Senate Energy Bill! Stop Taxpayer Dollars For New Reactors!

The Senate Energy bill, S 14 (Domenici, NM), will be on the Senate floor periodically throughout May and into June. There IS time to educate, organize and defeat this bill!

For Individuals: Call your Senators and urge them to oppose S 14 and support a filibuster to defeat this bill. Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121. You can (and should) also go to Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program website and send a free fax to your Senators.
http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=154&source=8

However, you should also urge your Senators to support any amendment that would eliminate taxpayer funding for new nuclear reactors.

Tell your friends about the bill, your colleagues at work, church, the PTA, the dorms, wherever you may go, and ask them to call and fax as well. NIRS has prepared a new factsheet on the bill; it's available at http://www.nirs.org. Formatted versions (Microsoft Word .doc format) for additional distribution are available on request, just ask us at nirsnet@nirs.org or 202.328.0002.

For Organizations: Do the above! And then alert your members and ask them to do the same. Call like-minded organizations, civic organizations and any other organization you work with.

Then, sign on to the letter below. To sign on, please send your name, organization, city and state to nirsnet@nirs.org. Deadline is 9 am, Tuesday, May 27. Please, organizations only!

Please send this message widely. If you would like regular updates on the Senate Energy Bill and the campaign to defeat it, please join NIRS' e-mail Alert list. Just send your e-mail address, name and address to nirsnet@nirs.org with the subject: "subscribe" (you may unsubscribe by sending a message to that address with the subject "unsubscribe").

We'd greatly appreciate it if you could help us pay for this campaign as well. Despite the clear need, foundation funding for energy work has been greatly reduced over the past two years, and some major national organizations have been forced to close their doors. Thus, we are relying more than ever on our members and supporters. You can make a secure online donation at www.nirs.org (look for the groundspring.org button), or you can send a check to NIRS at 1424 16th Street NW, #404, Washington DC 20036. Donations are tax-deductible. But even if you can't help financially, please take the steps above!

Thanks! Together we can defeat this bill, stop new reactor construction, and start over to attain a clean, sustainable energy policy for our nation.

Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

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Dear Senator

The Energy Policy Act of 2003 (S. 14) is irreparably flawed. We wish to voice our strong opposition to this bill, which would hurt energy consumers including business, citizens and government alike both now and in the future. Perhaps more importantly, S 14 would ensure America's energy insecurity for many years to come.

Although this bill would support numerous ill-advised actions, we find the taxpayer-funded welfare to nuclear reactors particularly reprehensible. Since 1947, nuclear power has received 145 billion dollars in government subsidy compared to only 5 billion for solar and wind combined. That means nuclear subsidies have cost the average household a total amount of $1,411 [1998 dollars], compared to $11 for wind. If S 14 passes, it would recommend the Secretary of Energy provide loan guarantees for up to 8,400 Mw of new nuclear electricity generation. This would mean constructing between 6 and 10 new nuclear reactors. In a May 7, 2003 cost estimate report, the Congressional Budget Office says the risk of default on these taxpayer loans is very high--well above 50%. Handing more government money to large private utilities to build new nuclear reactors they would not build on their own is obviously not a good investment for taxpayers.

The CBO continues: "The key factor accounting for this risk is ...the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources." Using NRC, DOE and nuclear industry figures, the CBO estimates a construction cost under $3 billion for a 1,100 MW reactor. The problem with this number is that the entities on which CBO relies have historically underestimated the cost of reactor construction. A look at the actual construction costs of all U.S. nuclear power stations that came online between 1987 and 1996 (when the last reactor began operation) reveals an average cost of $4.3 Billion each with the more expensive reactors generally being the more recent ones. The highest cost, $6.8 billion, was racked up by the Watts Bar reactor, which has been online only seven years. This clearly is not "25 years ago" as the Nuclear Energy Institute tried to claim about the CBO estimates. This represents the most recent reactors, using the most recent nuclear technology, and therefore represents the only practical experience we have to go on.

We don't want our taxpayer dollars thrown away like this. We need to invest in energy sources that are clean, actually work, give a return on investment, and can secure the energy future of the United States. Nuclear power is an established, mature energy technology. If utilities believe that nuclear power is a solid, money-making venture and can compete, let them invest their own funds in it and leave our tax dollars alone. It is time to take nuclear power off the energy welfare roles.

Sincerely,